Saturday, March 22, 2008

Goodbye Sweet Clover...

In reading some news recently, I stumbled across by far the most saddening news of the week. Starbucks released a press releasestating that they just bought the company that makes Clovers. Sure that might actually mean that now the average citizen will be able to obtain a good cup of coffee from the consistently poor Charbucks, a welcome improvement. But it also ends the era of local coffeehouses even being allowed to buy the machines, as Starbucks now exclusively owns the technology, which means that if a non-Starbucks place already doesn't have a Clover, they're not going to (or so says the press release).

A funny thing is that the press release also stated the company will be introducing a "state-of-the-art espresso system that provides a perfect shot every time." Unless this machine is more of a cage with a World Barista Champion locked inside, I really have my doubts in seeing this come to fruition.

All in all, I draw some hope for the non-Starbucks world from this article in Slate.

2 comments:

I had been looking forward to trying out a Clover brew with some neat microroasted coffee. Now I guess I'll never get to unless Star$s will let us bring in our own beans.

But at least the smaller shops won't be tempted to blow $11,000 for a single cup brewer. They can still get a pretty decent single-cup brew using 1-cup drip filters. I've seen a lot of shops do that. What do these cost? Maybe $5?

I am trying to compile a comprehensive list of locations that have Clover machine in place and collect as many recipes as possible. All the data is for public use, just to keep the Clover community going. I started with locations and have quite a few now. Would be great if someone could share recipes as well at http://www.beclover.com